Taste of a Rosebud
by Dream Writer 4 Life
Summary: The complete tragedy that is the relationship between Sydney Bristow and Michael Vaughn. Honorable Mention in SD1 May '06 Challenge. A Dream Writer Experience.


**Title:** Taste of a Rosebud  
**Author:** Dream Writer 4 Life  
**Rating:** PG-13  
**Genre:** MAJOR tragedy, angst — trangst  
**Archived:** SD-1, FFN, and my site. Anywhere else, just ask and you shall receive!  
**Spoilers/Timeline:** Post-Resurrection; no Season 4 spoilers  
'**Shippers' Paradise:** S/V. May I be pelted with pens if I write anything else.  
**Disclaimer:** If you sued me over this, I could give you a depleted notebook, empty pen, and pocket lint. In other words, I own nothing. Period. End of story. Wait, no it's not! Keep reeding!  
**Summary:** "Every time I read _Wuthering Heights_, I hope for just a moment that maybe — _maybe_ — Catherine will marry Heathcliff...But it never happens." The complete tragedy that is the relationship between Sydney Bristow and Michael Vaughn. Honorable Mention in SD-1 May '06 Challenge. A Dream Writer Experience.  
**Suggested Soundtrack:** "A Day Without Rain" by Enya, "Breathe No More" and "My Immortal" by Evanescence, "One Thing" by Finger Eleven, "Wreck of the Day" by Anna Nalick, "Angel" by Sarah McLachlan, "Painters" by Jewel, and "Slumber My Darling" by Alison Krauss and Yo-Yo Ma.  
**Author's Note:** I used an entire pen on this. _An entire pen_. That's never happened before. I just _had_ to enter this challenge; whenever there's a quote involved, an idea just springs into my mind. I decided to play with tragedy (and POV changes) for this one, and I decided I love that genre. So grab a box of tissues, your favourite angst music, and enjoy!

Taste of a Rosebud

She's not there.

That is how it all starts.

She is not there.

As you slowly peer around your hospital room, groggy as a duck on an elephant tranquilizer, her absence permeates the space like a physical person. The lights on the machines crowding your bed wink like her. The reflection on the television at the foot of your bed sparkles like her smile. But her voice, her words, _her body_ does not sit beside you, no matter how hard you click your heels together, close your eyes, and will her into the rickety chair. In her place lays a single slip of yellow legal pad paper — her preferred medium for note-taking. Unassuming enough, but you know how a single paper, a single sentence, a single word, can shake up the shoebox of your life and deposit everything wherever the hell it wants to.

You sigh.

A Dear John letter.

You thought the two of you were adult enough to discuss problems face to face. But you forgot to factor in one other aspect of her personality: her confrontation failsafe. She hates it; she always has. But in this case...you hope she would have felt confident enough to leave the paper out of the equation.

Despite having enough stitches to make a quilt jealous, you stretch towards the yellow slip and grab it with your fingertips. Settling back into the skeletal mattress and flat pillow, you carefully read the note.

And reread it.

And reread it.

And reread it.

She visited you after her solo trip to Wittenberg, and although she seemed notably distracted, you know you can only speculate as to the reason until she actually tells you — which she never did. You remember her hands either fidgeted in her lap or raked through her hair, actions you wrote off at the time as excess adrenaline needing an outlet, and seeing as _you_ were occupied at the time...

As the doctors wheeled you down the hall towards the operating room, you vaguely recall grasping at her hand, pleading with her to stay at least until you woke up.

Her face dropped as her hand fell out of your grip. Your eyes locked with hers, and you searched for an answer, for something true.

She promised with her words.

But her eyes said something different entirely.

The absence of everything _her_ related is all the _real_ response you need: she has not returned to your side since your fourth surgery in nearly as many days.

Lauren's not-so-unfortunate demise instilled within you hope for a future, one that includes love and happiness and puppies and unicorns and greenmeadowswithfluffywhitecloudsandprettycolouredflowers...In short, a future with her. The fact that she bothered to show up after Wittenberg, upon further reflection, reveals her desperate wish for the same outlandish clichés.

She loves you.

You know she does.

You just...know it.

Because the alternative is completely unfathomable.

And you love her more than anything; there exists no possible way to qualify your love for this woman.

She knows this. She must.

But then why didn't she stay?

Her note says that she has 'issues' that she needs to work out; she'll only be a short while. You know that is all-too-familiar Bristow Speak for someone has dealt her a fresh betrayal, and she needs to rectify the situation through whatever means she deems necessary. She can be missing in action for a day; she can be gone for a year. It really depends on the investigation or, as AC/DC would say, the dirty deed needing doing for dirt cheap. Her note really does not disclose much more than that. Between the lines, you read tears and fears, pauses between the clauses, and reflection on her current deception. In fact, you read more into what is _not_ written than what actually parades across the page.

You stare at the paper until it is completely memorized, down to the impressions from previous attempts at the same words. This feeling of abandonment — of being a cigarette butt tossed out the window of a moving vehicle, coming to rest in the gutter amongst leaves and animal feces — will not uproot from the centre of your chest. You feel useless, merely a cacophony of blood and flesh and hair and stitches that no one in the entire world could love. _EVER._ You feel paralyzed, and you cannot move even if you cast off your bindings; the note holds you fast like a weight of pure lead.

Running a hand through your hair, you sigh heavily.

You mostly feel restless. Something must be done...But what? What can you possibly do to counteract the erratic, unpredictable, scared actions of _the_ best spy you know? Part of your mind screams for you to get up and get going — her head start does not need to get any longer. The other half, the logical half, the maddeningly-right half, knows you must simply sit back and wait for _her_ to come to _you_. She will return when she is ready.

But you cannot accept that. Your 'balls of steel' side will not let you. So you pull a Hegel and smash the two together, extracting from the mess a compromise: you will quietly pursue her (watch the Echelon wires, in essence) to assure her safety and your sanity.

Because what else is there?

The pain is overwhelming. And you cannot tell whether it is from your patchwork lungs or you trampled heart.

* * *

There's one thing I've always been good at: running. Whether pounding the pavement at the UCLA track or delving into my favourite book after a stressful mission, I can speed past any competition set before me. In the past, I've taken pride in my stamina and compartmentalizing skills; both are what make me a good spy. I outmaneuver bad guys' bullets, and the image of their bloody bodies never truly enters my consciousness. I'm not ashamed to admit I like running.

There's only one problem.

I can't stop.

My feet continue to race even though they're bleeding and covered in blisters. I've got so many compartments that I don't know where anything is...And I don't want to. Only intellect and survival skills remain unhindered; the rest are padlocked and surrounded by C-4. Sadness, pain, anxiety, despair...All of them are under lock and key. I guess that also means happiness is out of my reach for the moment.

But I still can't find the brakes.

And that's why I'm sitting here on a train bound for Zurich reading a copy of _Wuthering Heights_ that's older than I am. I need to get some money — all right, _a lot_ of money — from my account before I start my search. In my case, all roads lead to Rome...Again.

I won't lie: my father's betrayal _du jour_ hit me hard. That's another emotion that still stings my heart like salt on an open wound: betrayal. There's no safeguard against it; believe me, I've looked. But this one I just cannot accept. Despite her more than sketchy past, my mother would not order me killed. She just wouldn't. My family's more into torture, anyway. Therefore, there must be another reasonable explanation: for the assassination attempt, for my mother's murder at my father's hand, for everything. And I intend to find it, through whatever means necessary.

The children on the train glare at me as if I'm crazy, reading a book with no pictures when I could be drawing moustaches on the men in the safety manual. The adults covertly sneak their glances, but I feel their radiating pity all the same. They think my boyfriend (fiancé? I get that vibe from an elderly woman three rows back) and I had a falling out, and I'm going into the mountains for the weekend in order to think things through.

Boyfriend...

Is it horrible that every time I hear/see/think that word, I think/see/hear Vaughn?

I left him. I know this. _I_ left _him._ I left him, unconscious, at the hospital after his fourth surgery in almost as many days. I cut out on him when he probably needed me most. I broke my promise.

I can't stop running.

I'm a horrible person.

But I need to do this alone.

He of all people should understand that.

But I hope he can forgive me. I don't know what I would do if he didn't. That annoying little chemical called my conscience has been tapping at the base of my skull since I made the decision: I could be squandering our Second Chance; I could lose him again right after I got him back.

And I can't handle that prospect.

We've been through almost every hardship imaginable, and the fact that we may not get to go through their happy counterpoints...No. I refuse to believe it.

But I still can't find the brakes.

Every time I read _Wuthering Heights_, I hope for just a moment that maybe — _maybe_ — Catherine will marry Heathcliff. Someone will go back in time and change the tragedy into a true love story. But it never happens. Brontë's characters persist in being stubborn asses, and they never express their true feelings, and they keep getting angrier and angrier and angrier...

I close the book and stare out the window instead, watching the snow-capped mountains flash by.

Vaughn loves me. I've known that almost as long as I've known him. Somehow, I know his marriage to Lauren did not shake that emotion, probably made it even stronger.

Describing what I feel for Vaughn is not humanly possible. It's like trying to describe the taste of a rosebud: one simply cannot do it. How can I qualify the deepest loving emotion one can possibly feel for another human being? It's smaller than a breadbox?

He'll understand my reasons for leaving so abruptly. He always understands. I need to do this on my own; no help, no distractions. On my own. He'll understand. He always understands.

I just hope he'll wait for me.

'Cause I still can't find the brakes.

The train lurches to a halt, and my feet immediately hit the ground. Shoving the book into the bottom of my single small bag, I strut out of that station a woman with a purpose. I'm going to find out the truth, whatever it takes. If I hurt him...Well, I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.

For now, I don't want to stop running.

* * *

You see her for the first time in four months in Buenos Aires.

You sit at a table by the window in a small restaurant near downtown, waiting for a dead drop from Weiss at the garbage can on the corner. The cup of strong black coffee steams in your grip, the transparent white wisps curling in upon themselves in impossibly complicated patterns before twisting into nothingness. The muffin before you sulks without its chocolate chips, but is otherwise untouched. The air practically flows around your hunched, sweating form, and you briefly wonder why the _hell_ you passed up a cool lemonade for much-needed caffeine. A small hamm radio barks rapid Spanish from the bar, and a small group of locals cluster around it, groaning and arguing as their favourite soccer team relinquishes yet another lead.

Absently, you shift your gaze from the scarred tabletop to the eclectic stores on the opposite side of the street. Postcards, key chains, picture books...Definitely a tourist trap if you ever saw one. Glancing at your watch, you tap it in aggravation; is Weiss late, or did Time get stuck in the ohgodyou'rechokingonhumidity air?

Something draws your eyes upwards and towards the shops again. You cannot explain the sensation, but _something_ tugs on your entire being.

And there she is.

Opening the door of the tourist trap, small plastic bag in hand. She pauses in the middle of the busy sidewalk to tuck the bag into her tote purse. The thick blonde curls and pink bug-eyed sunglasses paired with tall black boots, grey skirt, and white top do not fool you; _your_ Sydney hides underneath. She tucks the blonde wig behind her ear like your Sydney. She roots around in her bag like your Sydney. She sits the sunglasses on her crown just like your Sydney.

But she is also different. A duality surrounds her aura stronger than you have ever felt before. In the old days, she kept Syd and Agent Bristow on opposite sides of the Earth, never letting them meet in any way, shape, or form. _This_ Sydney, however, seems a hybrid of the two — an Agent Syd of sorts. Her shoulders relax — or do they slump? — but her calf muscles tense continuously as if ready to carry her off in any direction at any moment. You cannot tell for sure from this distance, but you imagine her cheeks are shallower.

Maybe it's the light. Maybe it's the angle. Maybe it's that little sadistic streak in you wishing that she literally cannot survive without you.

And then she looks up, and her gaze bores right into your soul, and all thoughts flee your mind like teenagers when a police car turns the corner.

For a moment, it's just like it used to be.

Your heart pauses in mid-contraction, and your breathing mimics that organ, and nothing and no one else in the entire world exists — it's just the two of you together forever and ever with greenmeadowswithfluffywhitecloudsandprettycolouredflowers...

Then she's gone.

Just as suddenly as she appeared, she disappears amidst the crowd of Buenos Aires. Without thinking, without removing your eyes from the spot she last inhabited, you practically teleport out the door of that dusty restaurant and tear apart the street with your eyes, desperately searching for a head of curly blonde hair. All that greets you is a sea of brown and black.

Suddenly a crackling registers in your ear, and you remember that, yes, you are on a mission and, yes, the rest of the world does exist...

It's Weiss. He wants to know why you have not picked up his dead drop yet; it has been nearly ten minutes.

In a daze, you peer at your watch. It still reads the same time as the moment before you saw her.

The watch stopped. Again

In every city I stop, I buy a pair of postcards, one for myself and one for him. I even go so far as to write a message for him, expressing how much I miss him, his voice, his touch, his love.

I always promise myself that I'll mail it in the morning.

But, invariably, I get a call in the middle of the night: a new trip, a new lead. No time to stop and think.

The morning never comes for me.

And so I end up with two postcard collections: one blank set and another that might as well be.

Seeing her again messes you up for a long time.

You just started to pick up the shards of your life — for the third time. The hospital releases you, Weiss offers you his guest room until you buy a new place (you have an unfortunate accident with grease, a match, and the curtains in the front hall of your former abode), and although Barnett still sees you once a day for an hour, you consider this progress on the whole.

Until you see her.

Then you're back at square one.

The first thing you do when you get home: miss your session with Barnett. You fly to your computer and immediately check the flight logs and every passenger manifest for every plane going in and out of Buenos Aires, searching for any of her known aliases. You find two of them, one on an inbound flight and the other on an outbound that left literally an hour ago. The middle of the night. Why would she do that?

Why would she do anything?

Seeing her again messes you up something _bad._

Your mind races like a sprinter on speed but stands still at the same time. Your heart leaps every three seconds at the prospect of seeing her again, of holding her again, of being with her again. Your skin literally tingles as you think of her hand in yours. You yearn for her voice whispering in your ear, singing along with the radio in the shower, yelling at you at the top of her lungs — whatever she is saying or wants to say, you need to hear it.

And that's when you realize it.

You need her.

This purgatory you're living in cannot be prolonged anymore.

Now instead of leafing through the classified ads for an apartment near downtown with a view of the ocean, you pour over passenger manifests from the past four months, every major hotel chain's on-line log, as well as money movement from her accounts in Zurich, Taiwan, and South Africa. More papers than sheets cover your bed, and you sit in the centre of the somehow organized chaos with your laptop perched on your knee and turning all of this into one simple sentence.

You should have started this a long time ago.

Her head start is almost insurmountable, but you know you can do it. You have to. She needs your help, whether she wants to admit it or not. And you need her. It has taken you four months to realize this.

Now you are making up for lost time.

* * *

Damn it.

He saw me.

And what's even worse?

I saw him.

The look on his face as he tears off my costume piece by piece and realizes it was me...Indescribable. Like the taste of a rosebud.

He looks...different. Still as Goddamn ethereal as before, but...still different. The stubble on his chin and cheeks seems like it can't decide if it wants to be there or not. He wears a faded t-shirt and board shorts (his attempt to fit in with the tourist crowd; he's so predictable) and sandals — God, the sandals! I have only seen him in sandals once, and I nearly jumped him when I saw him. He has such sexy feet, and as I peek around the corner, I just stare at him.

Yes, I ran away when I saw him.

There is that running again. I still can't stop.

But he scares me in a way that Sloane, Sark, and the Covenant never have.

He loves me. And that scares me to death.

I see that love radiate from his pores when he sees me in Buenos Aires, and I know I had to run. He would try to stop me, reel me back from the edge of doom for the nth time. Because that is what he does: he saves my soul, eats my sins, and somehow still wants to make love to me at the end of the day.

That thought alone makes me want to run into his arms and molest him on the street.

But this time, I don't want to be saved.

I need to keep going.

All the same, I reach my hotel room and throw the postcards onto the bed. I grab a pen and write in handwriting so small he'll need a microscope to read it — if I send it this time. I write for what seems like hours, neglecting the fact that I should be piecing together intel from my mission today. I run out of room on the back and immediately flip it over to the front, covering the glossy picture with my minuscule scrawl.

Then I suddenly stop.

It's not that I've run out of things to say.

It's just that the moment passes.

My frantic dash to pour out my heart and soul evaporates like a drop of water on the floor of Death Valley.

I forget the rosebud's taste before I have a chance to get out a word.

And just like that, I stop.

I sign my name and place a postage stamp in the only corner not saturated with black ink.

Then I stare at it. This would be the perfect time to mail it — all of them, in fact. He would know that I still love him, that I _will_ come back after I find my answers.

But he would come looking for me. And I don't want that. I've done things — horrible, terrible, grotesque things that I can't even think about while in the presence of his _name_ — that I don't want him to know about. I don't think he would be able to eat those sins.

For the moment, I need to keep running. Alone.

I get up and put the postcard away.

I'll mail it in the morning.

* * *

Not for one moment do you think she could be hiding something from you.

You rationalize both her prolonged absence and silence: she thinks she protects you from her past, from yet another added stress factor — you just killed your wife! (Well, not just; it has been over six months since that day in Palermo.) She thinks she is being generous by letting you live the normal life you have always wanted.

She's wrong to think that. 'Normal' cannot be 'normal' without her. It's _abnormal_ to go home to Weiss's apartment — just yards away from hers — and sleep in a bed that still does not feel like yours. You have officially moved in with him, under the pretense that you will move in with _her_ once she returns.

And you can take the stress. Worrying about her has been your job and your hobby for more years than you care to admit. On some level, you guess you enjoy it.

And anyways, it's more stress _not_ knowing than knowing for sure.

So you spend every night barricaded in your room with a laptop, bulletin board, and coffee maker, trying to predict where she will go next and where you could possibly intercept her. Just when Weiss thinks you have finally kicked the sanity bucket, you leave the house for a 'night out.' This red herring usually means you spend two hours at the most obscure coffee shop you can think of, rejecting advances from men in black turtlenecks and women who speak in iambic pentameter ("'As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods; they kill us for their sport,'" says one. A derisive giggle, and then something about your love residing with someone who tastes like rosebuds) before making the rounds to every payphone in the tri-county area. Most of your contacts always seem sufficiently spooked and give away next to nothing: a name three days old, a location a week too late, an action you refuse to believe.

Not for a moment do you think she could be hiding something from you.

Not for a moment do you think she has done things — horrible, terrible, grotesque things — that her shame conceals from you.

Not for a moment do you think she does not want to be found.

Well, you did before, but that doesn't count. This crazy story the two of you star in — this insane concoction of characters and chapters, heroes and villains, cliffhangers and mini-climaxes — needs a resolution. Demands it. And you intend to deliver.

Not for a moment do you think the resolution could be the definition of anti-climactic.

Before you finally give up at go home, you stop off at the Convenience Store on the Corner to pick up a pack of the cheapest cigarettes and a single beer. You walk to the park, light a cigarette, and rest it on the lip of a trash can as you drink the beer. You know Weiss will be home when you get there just to spite you, so you must at least smell like a bar in order to please him.

You light a match for every time she crosses your mind, and if it is one of those nights particularly filled with denial, you let them burn until they scorch your fingers raw. You usually run out of matches within five minutes. Eventually, you learn to bring a lighter and let your fingers linger in the flame almost until they blister.

Your body admits what your mind cannot.

When the faint glow of the cigarette dies, you finally wend your way to Weiss's apartment. You almost cannot bear the relieved sigh he heaves as he smells you before he sees you. For his sake, you keep your left hand hidden. At all times.

* * *

I know he's tailing me. He's not exactly being covert about it: he's asking our mutual contacts for information they could easily provide, and on more than one occasion, they have asked me to put them out of their misery. I would be more than happy to do it...if it wasn't for the fact that it would take time, effort, and resources that I do not want to waste.

And he would trace it back to me.

A threat will have to do for now.

I _am_ a Bristow/Derevko after all. I learn from the best.

My leads are starting to _back up._ I'm worried that I won't be able to land in the right city, to coerce the right mercenary in time. It is the most exhilarating feeling I have ever felt in my life.

Despite my numerous means of burning money, I never quite run out. I moonlight occasionally, doing different things for different people. That rakes in quite a few Benjamins (or pesos...or euros...or pounds...), but there is another way I get money: charity. Every Tuesday when I check my accounts, the log lists a large deposit in the Zurich bank. Every Wednesday, a small (but still sizeable) amount shows up in Taiwan.

My father and Vaughn.

They're not collaborating.

God, nothing changes.

For once in my life, I am getting somewhere. CIA protocol and rules and regulations and guidelines do not trip me up, running rings around me and slapping red tape across the barrel of my gun. For once, I get to do what I want to do how I want to do it. It is much more efficient than tranquilizers and scary chairs in scary rooms followed up by empty threats of hard jail time.

A bullet to the temple or a knife to the groin works wonders.

I feel myself begin to turn.

In my line of work, some would consider it inevitable. When one factors in Rambaldi, X number of betrayals, and _my freakishly contorted life,_ I'm surprised it took this long.

It's like running away from the sunset and expecting the world to get _brighter_. I run headlong into the all-encompassing darkness, and I'm not sure I care.

The darkness comforts, conceals, forgives; sunlight chides, exposes, reminds.

I am supposed to render the world unto utter desolation. Maybe I should get started on that.

I can barely remember the taste of a rosebud. It comes and goes, and when it comes, it lasts only as long as a lilac's breeze. Most devastatingly, its effect parallels the touch of a butterfly on my arm: brief and promising beauty and joy unattainable. I remember feeling loved and giving it in return. I remember green orbs burning into my skin in the middle of the night, in the middle of a crowded room. I remember strong arms and calloused hands and bony feet. I remember sitting and talking for hours or dancing in the rain or doing absolutely nothing but everything at the same time. When I remember these things, I can almost remember the taste of a rosebud. Almost.

I want to, but sometimes I just can't.

Paris is next. Maybe I will take some precious time and try to clear my head. At least a little.

But as the blackness threatens to consume, I grasp one last tether to the taste.

No matter what, I always make the time to buy two postcards.

* * *

France.

Really?

You have so many memories of the entire country, and the only ones you seem to be able to remember are the ones you made with her.

Looks like you'll make another one.

Dixon informs you of a mission to France the exact day she is supposed to be there, and you briefly wonder whether her reach extends beyond her contacts.

You accept. Beg, rather, to be involved.

It is rare that missions take place in residential areas, but your objective this time is to invade the chapel of the Sorbonne in the Latin Quarter of Paris. You reach your objective (Dixon recovers Rambaldi's fingernail or something), but as you pack your equipment and ready for pick-up, a flash attracts your attention. In the yellow light of the street lamp on the corner, you see her clad entirely in black and sprinting in front of the building. Not hesitating for a moment, you literally drop everything and _run_.

As you turn the corner, you see her form flashing in and out of the reach of street lights, heading northeast down Boulevard Saint-Michel towards downtown and the Seine. It takes you a moment to gather good traction, your shoes slipping and sliding like a newborn foal's on the wet cobblestone, before you remember the technique — many years sprinting full-tilt down the uneven streets of Fleury taught you mean valuable lessons. But those few lost seconds cost you sizeable ground.

Closer to downtown, the sky glows pink with the light from streetlights and the traffic gets heavier, causing both of you to piss of more than one Parisian driver. A giant bus could bar your path, and you would probably plow right through it; you cannot tear your eyes away from her frantically fleeing form.

But when she reaches the middle of the bridge, she suddenly slams to a halt and slowly turns towards you. Staggering to a stop as well, you draw your tranq gun and take aim, trying desperately to outwardly display strength to give your insides to time to _freaking pull it together._ Not only does you breathing severely hurt your lungs (_God,_ you're out of shape), but your heart and stomach are busy choreographing the Next Great Dance Craze. Seeing her this close — nearly twenty feet and you could touch her — does absolutely nothing for your sanity. Despite the red blotches streaking her face, her skin pales disturbingly. Her eyes, distant and detached, sit farther back in her head, leaving deep black circles around the orbs you love so dearly.

You shake the gun at her, reminding your love without words what you are prepared to do to protect her. She merely raises an eyebrow in condescending amusement and climbs the short stone wall. You inch closer, still brandishing your weapon, but do not fire.

She straightens up with calculated precision, and her long hair whips behind her in a brown/black stream. Then you notice — she's changed. Big time. She carries herself differently: more regally, more femme fatale-style. It makes you wonder...You advance farther.

"_Arrête,"_ She commands sharply, and you comply, stopping ten feet away from her face, and she whispers, _"Tout est arrangé. __C'est pas notre faute. Le destin, la mort...c'est le même chose._ Don't follow me again." And she falls backwards into the Seine.

But the splash never comes.

You slam into the edge, yearning to see her either dangling from the edge or bobbing in the water. She awards you neither. She's not there. She disappeared.

What the hell...?

She leaves you slumped against a stone wall in downtown Paris with nothing but a cryptic warning about destiny and death.

You are aggravated.

But it's a start.

* * *

I never thought it could be as bad as this.

Though I carry enough baggage to break several camels' backs, never in my most severely contorted dreams could I concoct something as utterly horrible as this.

I know that my father killed Mom; I learned that through the confidential files in Wittenberg. After that revelation, I swore I would never speak to my father again. So far, I have held true to that promise. It is juvenile, I know; like not talking to Ashley because she didn't tell you she was going out with Chris when she's supposed to be your best friend. But it's all I had.

Until now.

Now...it's all over.

Everything.

All bets are off.

I sit in the ancient library of the Sorbonne chapel surrounded by some of the oldest books on the planet alongside statues of the Virgin Mary, the crucifixion, and Saint Michael, and I cry. Weep. Sob. Despair. I turn page after page of the documents, disguised as old Latin formulas, and my utter desolation builds like a child with blocks: he doesn't care that tower is going to fall; he just wants to see how high it can go before it does finally crumbles.

And that's what I do: crumble.

Not only do I read through the transcripts of my father's _sanctioned_ interrogation, torture, and subsequent murder of my mother, but I finally learn the unedited truth.

She knew — and through her, he knew, too — _exactly_ what happened to me during my two-year abduction. Down to the people I met.

During those two years, I met Lauren. I went on missions with Lauren. _We trained together._ And I knew when she left the compound that she was going on a deep-cover mission as an NSA agent who would eventually marry the love of my life: Michael Vaughn.

I knew she was a lying, cheating whore before she _was_ a lying, cheating whore.

_And they didn't tell either of us._

The tears roll down my cheeks effortlessly now, more a part of my skin than drops of water, as a revelation drenches my soul.

I could have stopped this. I knew Lauren was a mole; if I hadn't erased my memory, I could have weeded her out before she did any real damage.

_Why did I erase my memory?_

Suddenly, my parents' betrayal pales drastically in comparison to my betrayal of him. I knew, and still I did nothing. In fact, I did something worse than nothing: I turned my back. Apathetic to his future, I cared only for myself. Suddenly, Lauren's not the only lying, cheating whore.

Sitting back in my chair, I stab at my eyes stubbornly and attempt rational thought. What are my options now? What is left for me after my world finally falls apart after being taped and glued together so many times? Now it's irreparable.

I can't go back.

At the moment, I don't quite know about my other options, but I know I can never return to my old life knowing what I know now.

I can't look at him, face him without wanting to gut myself, tear out my heart so that he understands how guilty I feel.

But he will never know. Not if I have anything to do with it.

Then a soft click echoes throughout the chapel. Someone else is inside, and I have a pretty good idea who. I stuff the documents I came for into my vest and shut off the flashlight; the light from the stained-glass windows should suffice. It takes a while, but I eventually find the back door of the chapel's library and circle into the actual chapel; the CIA would never go in through the front door. I fly over the altar and sprint down the main aisle and towards the giant crucifix over the doorway. He's here somewhere, but I cannot pinpoint his exact location. Flattening myself in a shadowy corner by the door, I lie in wait, assuring my spy instincts that no one really stands on the opposite side of the heavy wooden doors. As soon as they are satisfied, I bolt down Boulevard Saint-Michel towards downtown Paris and my planned escape route.

Almost immediately, I hear the slap of shoes on the wet cobblestone, and without looking back, I can tell he follows me.

What an idiot! Doesn't he know I've ruined his life enough already?

I sprint to the nearest bridge over the river and pray to God my equipment is where it's supposed to be. (If it's not, my much-too-friendly French contact will not want to be friendly anymore.) Feeling the documents shift beneath my waterproof vest, my mind turns back to the man chasing me, and I hesitate.

The kiss of death.

He loves me. He deserves _some_ sort of parting words, doesn't he? Some indication that I will never enter back into his life, and he can move on for real this time? If I can give that to him, I should.

But I can't. I cannot trust my mouth to _not_ say what I need to keep secret. Instead, I should just drop off the face of the Earth like I planned, and he will eventually figure out that I cannot see him anymore.

And then I make another mistake.

I turn around.

Seeing him huffing and puffing, trying to catch his breath after a relatively short run (_God,_ he's out of shape) brings back memories — ones I would really rather forget about at the moment. The stubble must have made up its mind to stay, and to make up for the former indecision, it takes over his entire face — or maybe that's just shadow; he _is_ backlit by a street lamp. But his eyes...His eyes! I cannot break our gaze. His round, pleading eyes have always done me in, and they continue this trend right now. I feel words forming, backing up down my throat, and if I am not careful, they could tumble out. I need to censor them in any way, shape, or form possible.

"Stop. Everything is arranged. It's not our fault. Destiny, death...It's the same thing. Don't follow me again." I concentrate so hard on the words that I do not pay attention to which language I say them in. Was that French or English? Or some combination? It doesn't matter, because he comes toward me with his little toy aimed at my heart. Does he really think that scares me in the least? I've stared down the equivalent of a tank and not so much as blinked. Hasn't he heard I have nothing to live for anymore?

Scraping my boots against the brick wall to activate the strong magnets and praying one last time my equipment's in place, I fall back towards the river. As planned, my shoes latch onto one of the metal I-beams underneath the bridge, and I hang upside down for a moment. I fight the blood rushing to my head and finally find the package — a personal underwater propulsion pack. (P.U.P.P. I really need to find contacts with more imagination.) Grasping the awkward plastic object between my knees, I unlatched my boots and grab onto the actual I-beam instead, swinging like a child on the monkey bars until I reach a ledge on the side of the bridge. Readying the machine, I gently slip into the water and jet towards the island of Notre Dame and my awaiting contact.

The taste of the rosebud washes away with the bubbles.

* * *

Paris only strengthens your resolve.

The desolation in her voice...She screams for you to rescue her from the widening gyre.

So instead of writing the mission's report, meeting with Barnett, or even debriefing, you fly straight to your laptop and begin tracking flights and manifests again. The bulletin board gets overhauled "Extreme Makeover" style; you start a new box of coffee filters; and you break out the package of multi-coloured highlighters. _Nothing_ is going to get past you this time.

You do not even pretend to go out anymore. Weiss begins knocking on your door around mealtimes to donate your share of food, but you ignore him, shooing your best friend away while on the phone with a contact or literally blocking him out of your consciousness entirely. He eventually receives the message and instead leaves the food outside your door. The prison-style trays sometimes even include a note like the first one did. When you stepped out of your room to use the facilities, you almost tripped over an opened bag of Funions with a paper saying, _'You can eat these now that I don't have to smell your rank breath. Enjoy.'_

Surprisingly, you do not seem to care. You watch your relationship with your best friend, with the rest of the breathing world go straight to Hell in a Prada purse, and all you can think about is how you can harass the next flight attendant into giving up the flight log. The entire house can burn down around you, but as long as your laptop screen does not die in the middle of a transaction, everything's gold.

No matter what, you are going to take back your future, the one with love and happiness and puppies and unicorns and greenmeadowswithfluffywhitecloudsandprettycolouredflowersandtastyrosebuds...You are going to take back _her._ No. Matter. What.

It takes one week to realize she ain't moving.

_One full week._

She hops on a plane to Cairo and then disappears. No record of her surfaces after that: you make sure to check car rental agencies and every border checkpoint's passport log, which is hard, because Arabic isn't exactly your favourite language. The fact that your knowledge does not extend beyond what "Aladdin's" subtitles taught you — you cannot read a word (symbol?) — dampens your efforts considerably. (Your sadistic side says she did this on purpose: the Cyrillic languages like Arabic, Russian, and Hebrew are the worst.) But you persevere by downloading one of Marshall's nifty translating programs, and you eventually narrow down her location to the poorer district of town.

So you make travel plans and stay up all hours of the night cramming Arabic into your brain. When you finally emerge from your room, Weiss breathes an audible sigh of relief; but when you pounce on the remote and glue your eyes to Al-Jazeera, his fingers dial the CIA as quickly as possible. He wants your passport blocked _now._ He says he does not know what you're planning, but it is never good when you start actively learning something. You merely scoff; he either thinks you joined Al-Qaeda or you are getting an Arabic mail-order bride. Somewhere in your brain you know even he is not that stupid, and you begin watching Al-Jazeera only late at night in the privacy of your room. Nothing is going to stop you this time.

Then the day comes, and you pack discreetly. You wait until Weiss locks the bathroom door for his shower, and you rush back and forth to your car with your gear. Preparing for all situations, you bring enough money to live off of for a whole month along with enough ammunition to take out a small army. You do not know whether someone captured her and she needs rescuing, or if she is just holed up in a dusty, sandstone apartment building of her own accord. Being the true Boy Scout that you are, you prepare for any reality she could present to you, hoping she will open the door and accept you with open arms, but knowing she would probably just as soon as jump out the window.

But you never question the fact that she needs you, whether she knows it or not.

So when you show up and spend hours triangulating her position, you are more than pissed when she does not show up. You thoroughly search her humble abode (only slightly better than what you imagined) to find that she probably just left — maybe even merely yesterday. The thought angers you like a failing grade on a test you studied hours for, and you slam your fist so hard on the windowsill that it cracks and crumbles beneath your hand. You brush the dust off and turn around, sighing in frustrated resignation.

A woman in a black burka passes by the open door and retraces her steps when she sees you. She must have been heading out, as only her eyes peak out of the airy material, but she frees her mouth as she cautiously steps into the one-room apartment. One of the more moderate Muslim women, she approaches you with more curiosity than fear in her stance. Taking into account your light skin and Western dress, she forms sentences in extremely broken English. The first question out of her mouth relates to your relationship with the quiet Rosebud Lady who used to live here. Apparently, the Rosebud Lady moved out literally yesterday; just cleared out without any indication why. And this woman should know: her husband is the landlord of the complex.

Your heart rate suddenly spikes, but you remember to remain calm and speak slowly; she needs to understand you completely. You ask for details about this Rosebud Lady: hair, eyes, height, weight, personality, name.

A smile quickly spreads her lips, and she begins to chatter in rapid Arabic — so rapid that you cannot even distinguish separate sentences. An idea occurs to you, and you hold up a hand, signaling her to stop, and fumble for your laptop. Marshall included a nifty voice recognition feature into his program. You activate it, plug in a pair of earphones, and signal for her to recommence. The program provides an almost simultaneous translation, and you struggle to check your emotions as you listen to her describe the love of your life.

Her hair is shorter now — the woman helped her cut it herself — but her eyes remain the same warm, chocolate eyes they used to be. Out of respect for the culture, she dressed in burkas every day (usually black) and covered everything in public. Kept to herself, mostly, but confided in a few women. Those without many children would usually sit in the inner courtyard and gossip, and occasionally the Rosebud Lady would join them. Sometimes she brought her laptop, other times she just sat and listened to their stories. The women would allow her to remove the veil, and her bright smile always shown in the intense desert sun. Eventually, the needling women coaxed her to share some of her own stories. Like in the movies, the little children would gather around and listen in silent rapture as she told tales in fluent Arabic of far-off lands like Cleveland and Seattle. But their favourite was the love story, the one about the man that tastes like rosebuds, a love pure and sweet and simple and indestructible. He was talldarkandhandsome (that translates into every language) with rubies and diamonds and pearls and silks brocaded with gold and silver and a glittering palace in the middle of a tropical oasis. They faced adversity and overcame it together, earning a happy ending riding off into the sunset in a kilometer-long caravan of camels. It always placated the children, but the women knew better; her Rosebud Man exists, but in a different form. She once joked in a whisper that the only similarity between the two Rosebud Men was that they both went after damsels in distress.

She peers up at you with round, hopeful eyes.

Are you the real Rosebud Man?

God, you want to be. So badly.

You can only nod, your throat blocked by a lump the size of Montana. Her smile literally overtakes her entire face, and she clasps his hand with a surprisingly firm grip before exiting briskly, calling over her shoulder that the Rosebud Lady paid for the apartment through the end of the month.

You unclench your hand and find a folded piece of paper deposited by the woman. Unfolding it, her signature at the bottom immediately draws your gaze. The rest is in Arabic — _coded_ Arabic.

You never see the woman in the black burka again.

Spending the next thirteen days in that complex trying to decrypt her note does wonders for your comprehension of the language. You understand conversations, can speak basic introductions, and maybe even write your name. But then you finally get the meaning of her note, and you immediately log on-line to buy a plane ticket.

Russia.

Yay.

More symbols.

Now you _know_ she's doing this Sydney Scavenger Search just to piss you off.

You leave Cairo that same day.

Russia's cold climate nearly shocks your system into cardiac arrest when you land in St. Petersburg. After downloading the Russian version of Marshall's program off a remote server, you triangulate her position much more quickly; your contacts here are...well, existent. You learn where she sleeps, but you also learn she has a job tonight — she is doing a favour on a former KGB operative in exchange for intelligence. So you leave your luggage in your rental Sedan and go. Just go.

It's time for your date with Destiny.

* * *

Holding a gun to someone's temple, hearing him beg, scream, plead for his life gives me the biggest rush.

I hold a life in my hands, and for once in my life, I'm the one in control. The man — his exact identity is irrelevant. My contact may have said he murdered a classroom full of children — or he breeds puppies in his basement. As long as I don't have to sleep with him again, it doesn't matter; it just doesn't matter anymore. All I need to know is that he worked for my mother; after that, I stop listening. If he chooses to relinquish information, that's fine by me. But he must pay like I must: for the past crimes of others.

What?

A girl has to make a living _somehow_.

Do a job for a good sum, collect the money, live off it for as long as it lasts, plan a new job when things get tight. Rinse and repeat as necessary.

Right now, it's necessary.

I did multiple jobs in the Cairo region: the library heist in Alexandria, the bank robbery in Tripoli, the stolen intelligence from the American Embassy in Tel-Aviv. I did them right in a row so I wouldn't be bothered by anything for a while. But one of my contacts tipped me off to Vaughn's investigation. He was close; too close for me to continue living there in comfort. So I funneled the rest of my money into securing safe passage from Egypt into a similarly barren country with a similarly difficult language.

But for some reason, I resurrect my heart and leave him a note. An encrypted note in his least favourite language, but still a note. I know he will eventually decode it; hopefully, by that time, I will be somewhere else.

And then I need more money, so I put my feelers out for some jobs, and I actually find one right here in St. Petersburg.

That is why I stand here with my favourite gun jammed into this man's temple, my black trenchcoat whipping in the wind intensified by the narrow alley. He kneels on his knees before me, blood trickling out of his mouth to pool on the ground, his hand clutched to his chest as he tries to nurse the raw skin where I burned off the Follower of Rambaldi mark. I tortured him extensively in the building beside us, and he eventually coughed up the information I was looking for. But that doesn't matter: my job is to kill the child-murdering, puppy-loving bastard. I just like playing with them a little before the deed is done.

He begs, screams, pleads with me to spare his life, saying that he is a husband, father, essentially good man who's changed his ways since he worked with Irina. Really. He has. But even the tears streaming down his face to mix with his blood do not move me in the slightest. In fact, it only moves me farther down the anger spectrum.

Tears are for the weak.

_Emotions_ are for the weak.

Tasting rosebuds — definitely for weak people.

I smile a cold smile, one so biting that I'm sure the drop of blood teetering on his lip freezes where it is.

And then I shoot him.

As his brainless body hits the ground, I turn towards the head of the alley, cleaning my gun on a white cloth before tucking it into the belt of my coat. Suddenly, another set of footsteps joins mine, and I turn around.

And there he is, gun drawn — a real gun this time.

"Stop."

* * *

* * *

She laughs, void of mirth, and turns to continue down the alley with the familiar Derevko Swagger. But he will not allow that to happen this time. He fires a warning shot to her left, the bullet blasting a small hole in the brick over her shoulder. Pausing again, she exhales slowly, his persistence trying her practically non-existent patience. "Don't do this, Agent Vaughn," She states clearly, still facing the end of the way and the darkness beyond. "Go back home; you don't belong here."

He cannot tell whether she is being facetious or serious, but he follows her either way, the gun still pointed at her. "What, and you do? Syd, you're better than this. Turn around; come with me."

"No." She walks again, this time with her hand on her own weapon. "Go home. And put away the toy; your gun does nothing for me."

"I won't hesitate to shoot. You know that."

"What do you think you're doing right now?"

Pulling out all the stops, he steadies the gun but cries out, "I love you Sydney!"

Her blood runs as cold the dead man's coagulating on the pavement. How _dare_ he say that to her? It does not make sense. _He_ does not make sense. None of this 'love' thing makes the tiniest bit of sense to her foggy mind. But a single, solitary question rises above the discombobulation:

Does she love him?

At the moment, the answer remains buried within the heart of the fog.

But he construes her hesitation as a victory, no matter how small, and he continues to inch towards her. "Syd, you've done things; I know that. But that doesn't stop the way I feel about you: nothing ever could. I love you so much, Sydney; and that love should be enough."

Something within her suddenly snaps, and she spins around to face him with her own weapon drawn, the minimal light casting sharp shadows across her hallowed features. "This is _not_ a love story!" She screams, hollow voice echoing around them. For the first time tonight, he looks scared. Advancing at a fairly quick clip she continues, "If this were a love story, things would be easier. If this were a love story, we would get a happy ending."

Choking up on the grip, he tries not to choke himself as the cold flame approaches. "What are you saying?"

She halts a third of the way down the alley, a third of the distance from him, with the body in between them. "I'm saying that we're in a tragedy. Nothing ends up the way it _should_, only the way it's expected. Things are downright hard._ There will be no happy ending for us."_

His eyes round out as despair begins to fill the pit of his stomach. He begins to realize she no longer holds faith in him, in _them._ What happened? And then he glances down to see the guy he watched her torture and eventually kill, and he nearly retches. When he speaks, he barely recognizes his own voice. "You killed a man."

"So?" The disdain in her voice surprises even her, but she does not modify her statement. Her weapon does not falter.

Despite the horror he swallows when he thinks of her actions, upon gazing back up at her, he only feels love. That emotion crowds out almost every other, only sharing its part of his heart with the overwhelming need to eat her sins and take her away from this place. Gulping, he beings, "I know you've killed people. I know you've slept with people. I know you're on Interpol's Most Wanted list. But I don't care. We can make this into a love story if we try." He sees her façade waver on the brink for a moment, weighing the options of relinquishing control or turning around and walking down the alley. For a moment, he thinks she might drop the gun.

But then her eyebrows set, and the assassin is back. "I've changed, Vaughn. You won't love me anymore. No one should." She begins to turn around again. "Go home. You've wasted your time."

Yes, she has changed. Yes, she is not the same person he fell in love with. But he can definitely see falling in love with her all over again.

He reflects on his journey to this moment. He systematically pushed away everyone who still cared about him: Jack, Weiss, his coffee maker...Weiss. His mother died during Sydney's moonlighting, and he does not remember grieving at all.

He has nothing to lose.

And everything to gain.

"I've changed too, Syd," He says, more firmly than he thought he could. He knows this is it, now or never, and he needs to grab this opportunity and run for the border. She glares over her shoulder at him, also noticing the change in his tone. In her eyes, he sees hope, and no matter how far he must stretch to reach it, he will do whatever it takes to make her happy again. Whatever it takes. Even if that means selling his soul to the devil herself.

Her interest successfully piqued, he continues, "I've spent the last eight months worrying about you, tracking you down, predicting your next move. My heart was crushed every time a name caught my eye, and it ended up being _Katie_ Jones. You've always monopolized my every thought: in that, I haven't changed. But I've done things too, Sydney; things I'm not exactly proud of. I'm more like you than you know."

He is a horrible liar, and some things do not change. She sees right through the 'things he's not proud of:' he merely tries to impress her, coerce her into thinking his new personality parallels hers. It does not — he misses the mark by a _long_ shot — but he has changed; she feels it in his gaze, in the firmness of his grip. The darkness on his cheeks finally spreads to his eyes, making them hollow and gaunt. He does not lie about loving her, wanting to take her away from it all like he did in the past with a touch, kiss, caress. What changes, therefore, is his methods, the extent to which he is willing to go in order to make her smile.

He dangles on the edge of her precipice, and as each moment ticks by, he becomes more and more prepared to let go and follow her to their mutual perdition. She tumbled over after she learned the truth, and now only a last thread of guilt suspends him and keeps him from suffering the same fate. His loyalty, a much stronger force, pulls at his heart, threatening to drag him under.

That is when she feels it.

On the tip of her tongue.

The smallest tingle, a warm sensation, and then...

She remembers.

It all comes flooding back.

She remembers the taste of a rosebud.

And it tastes like _him_, like his love.

She finally finds words to describe it, and she wants to shout for joy and hug him and kiss him and share their dreams of love and happiness and puppies and unicorns and greenmeadowswithfluffywhitecloudsandprettycolouredflowers...

But she is in too deep. She is too far gone to return with him.

She knows too much. She has done too much. She cannot possibly live with him _and_ keep her secrets; her conscience would throw a fit and commit suicide.

Her only option: cut him loose.

She refuses to let him follow her down into the widening gyre of the all-encompassing abyss. _Someone_ in this world must stand for truth, justice, and the American way, even though each one contradicts another. For once, her sins are too large and too heavy to absorb; he cannot pick up her pieces. One of them must remain whole in this crazy life; love is no reason for both of them to fall into ruin.

So she lowers her weapon, tucks it inside her coat, and extracts a key instead. "Go home, Agent Vaughn. _I_ don't want you to be here." As she gravitates towards the blackness, she gradually slows and stops, that pesky conscience teaming up with her newly reaffirmed sense of love to form words better left unsaid. "This is the key to my apartment. Take anything you want; I won't need it anymore." Allowing herself one last glance over her shoulder, she adds, "The truth is in the chapel. Once you find it, you'll understand."

She drops the key on the wet pavement and is swallowed up by the darkness, still not comprehending the strength of a rosebud's taste. Or the desire to taste it again.

* * *

He goes to her apartment.

He finds the postcards, reads them.

He retraces her steps through the Sorbonne and pours over the documents.

He grieves: for him, for them, for what they could have had. But mostly for her: she has been carrying around this weight for so long...It must be killing her...

He still loves her, that he knows; nothing can ever change that.

He rereads the postcards, finds the clues.

He does not bother to pack: only hops on the next plane to Chicago.

* * *

She always wanted to live the suburbs. Did not matter what city: the only requisites were moderately busy streets, foliage, and the sound of lawnmowers in the morning. Even now, she reflects on the place's beauty. Late afternoon light spills onto her kitchen table, dappled by what is left of the late autumn leaves. A breeze sharp with the smell of wet soil and cut grass undulates the filmy curtains. She hears the crack of a bat, the rhythmic bouncing of a basketball, and a screech of protest from a handful of children playing in the street. The chatter from the local newscast occasionally drowns them out. A fairly grey cloud barely rims the horizon.

Which makes her hate this place even more.

Now she worries about shutting all the windows and protecting the flowerbeds before a little summer storm instead of worrying whom she is going to have to kill to get her next paycheck.

This place just is not conducive to her line of work.

It is the sereness. The innocense.

Plus the neighbours gossip entirely too much for her comfort.

She sighs and turns back to her papers, trying to block out whatever asinine blurb Mayor Daley spits on the television. She applied for and received a teaching position at the nearest high school (citing fake credentials, of course) as an AP Chemistry teacher. But right now, she pours over lists and lists of security protocols instead of lab notebooks; her next job could come at any time, and she is not up-to-date on the latest protection systems.

The cloud must be a thunderhead, because it takes no time in cutting off her light source and plunging her kitchen into semi-darkness. Groaning in frustration, she rises to turn on a light but hears the doorbell instead. Immediately drawing a weapon from inside the waistband of her jeans, she stalks towards the door.

For the CIA could also come after her any day.

But in place of a S.W.A.T. team, she finds a sole, broken man with nothing but hope and love and forgiveness in his eyes.

"Sydney?"

* * *

The first thing she does is promise not to go on any solo jobs. He pleads with her upon seeing the different packages on the table scattered amongst composition notebooks and legal pads. She gives in reluctantly, fully intending to keep that promise, but knowing that it will probably be broken eventually. But he accepts it, sweeping the information along with the legal pads into the garbage can.

The second thing they do, is hop a plane to Lima. After they finish coupling for the first time in three years in an onboard bathroom, he whispers that he might have someone following him. She expects nothing less and merely states that they might have to take some extra precaution in choosing where they settle down.

They spend the next month sleeping in terminals, sponge bathing in sinks, and changing each other's aliases in bathroom stalls. Sometimes she is a businesswoman, and he is a wannabe rocker — but usually if he is a rocker, she will be a groupie: after their first reunion, she can barely bare to keep her hands off of him. They traverse six of the continents multiple times, walking faster every time they see an obvious undercover agent. It is a hard, dangerous, and downright bad way to live, but neither of them care; as long as she knows the businessman in G25 or the surfer in E13 or the priest in A3 loves her, then she does not care how many colours her hair has been in the past week.

Finally losing their entourage in Johannesburg, they board one last flight to Rio de Janeiro, where they plan to settle down. Actually, they devise a plan to build their own little farm out near the rain forest and live there all alone until they deem it safe to move into the urban area _and have children._ He tacks the last part on with a smile, and she returns it uneasily. A child while they are still outlaws? But she shoves the thought out of her mind as they begin to build.

For the first time in her memory, she feels calm, at peace. Though they work for literally _everything_, and the work is hard, they like it; they enjoy it. They feel completely isolated from friends, family, enemies, the CIA, the rest of the world, and aside from their weekly visits to the nearest small town for absolute necessities, they are completely isolated. No electricity, no telephones: it is a large change from both the planes and from spy life in general.

They love being together after all those years apart.

But a restless yet immovable feeling refuses to quell in the pit of her stomach: something is missing or, rather, she misses something. After all those years in espionage and lying and running and shooting and adrenaline rushes, a piece of her heart near the back still pines for the emotional high she received after a particularly difficult mission — or even a kill. She knows she could never do anything about the feelings, though; every time she thinks of smoke-signaling the nearest contact, Vaughn smiles at her or kisses her, and she mentally beats herself over the head with her stone pestle.

She promised.

And then an offer falls into her lap, one that she simply cannot refuse.

One day while in town, an old man slips a pre-paid cell phone in with their supplies along with a note. She only finds it once she reaches their hut near the forest's edge, and making sure he remains safely occupied with cleaning the farm tools, she reads the note. Apparently, the mother she thought her father killed is actually alive and well — if one defines 'well' as 'a prisoner of the third Derevko sister, Elena.' The contact offers a one-time deal: she calls the only number in the phonebook and follows their usual protocol, and he will provide her with all the information she needs to infiltrate Elena's compound and rescue her mother.

It's gold.

She cannot possibly pass up this opportunity.

She dials the phone without a second thought and schedules a drop for the intel.

* * *

He rolls over in the middle of the night, and she is not there. Rising and lighting a candle, he pads softly to the kitchen where he finds her hunched over a stack of papers, writing by the light of her own candle. She smiles as he enters but does not look up. Sliding into the other chair, he rubs his eyes roughly then smiles back at her. "A love letter?"

That smile again. "Caught me." Flipping over a page, she corrects, "Actually, they're memoirs. If we're going to have children, shouldn't they know the whole story about their parents?"

His entire being brightens as he sits up and stares at her in disbelief. "Are you serious? Are you saying you want to—" His voice abruptly gives out, and she peers up at him from under her eyelashes, a conspiratorial grin tugging at the corner of her mouth. Suddenly he leaps at her, sending her chair crashing to the floor. "Trial number one: the kitchen floor."

She succumbs to his touch with a willing body but a weighty conscience.

* * *

She sets off while he works in the fields, leaving a note saying that she is at the market and will be back as soon as possible. Walking to the extraction point, she does not look back until they are in the air.

There is a storm coming.

If all goes well, he will assume she spent the night in town, and she will return the next day. She sighs and begins gluing together her alias.

He finds the note and does not worry. Instead, he decides to read what she has of her memoirs so far. But as he leafs through the document, he finds pages of type, decrypted in the margins by her hand. Schematics. An outline for a meeting. An outline for a mission. A date. Today.

He catches the next plane to Paris and the TGV to Nice.

* * *

Shit.

This is all she can think as she sprints down hallways and careens around corners. The contact double-crossed her and led her into a trap, giving her wrong maps and guard positions. Not having time to be pissed off, she put a bullet in his leg and began to run. She is still trying to find a way out of this place.

A door opens, and suddenly she stands on a stage in front of a sizeable nightclub crowd, but she does not have time to be confused: the guards follow her with guns a-blazing, scattering the innocent patrons.

Vaughn enters just as she takes down a man with a swift kick to the temple. His plans of rescuing his damsel in distress fly out the window, along with his belief in her promise. He gasps, and even amid all the confusion, she hears his disappointment as clearly as if he had screamed. Her heart surges into her throat, and for the first time since this entire tragedy began, she feels guilty about her actions. She wants to take them back, to be able to absorb his pain — the pain _she_ causes him. For a moment, she forgets where she is and begins to run towards him.

But someone decides to slam a foot into her stomach, effectively halting her progress. The aggressor throttles her throat and pins her against the nearest wall, suspending her feet off the floor, and she gasps Vaughn's name as she struggles to free herself. Then, to her horror, another guard stalks the love of her life as he tries to wend his way through the chaos to reach her. The man catches Vaughn by the throat and, as she hangs there, snaps his neck in a single, fluid motion. Vaughn crumples to the floor in a lifeless heap.

And she can only watch, helplessly pinned to the wall.

The only man she ever truly loved died right in front of her.

_Because of her._

No talk of children. No amiable silence during dinner. No long nights spent exploring each other's bodies. No more love.

And she never got to apologize, to tell him she loves him one last time.

Her blood fills with the taste of rosebuds, and she head butts her attacker, freeing her from his grip. It is the taste of a rosebud that gets her out of there with his body that night.

Tears flow freely as she drives them to a CIA safehouse in nearby Marseille.

At first, she cannot bear to do anything but stare at him, thinking of how destiny just plain sucks. She let her obsession with everything connected to her mother get in the way of her one true shot at happiness. She was _his_ obsession, and she knowingly led him to his death. She hates herself so much that she takes the largest butcher knife she can find and begins stabbing the walls, tearing into the cheap plaster and insulation as a way of diffusing her anger. Her hands become bloody and torn as she rips apart the walls, searching for something she will never find.

Eventually, the anger leeches out of her system along with the blood, and she does something she has not done in almost two years: call Weiss. At first, he cannot believe it is her, but once she delivers the horrific news, his jovial laughter dies in his throat. His voice quivers and shakes, on the verge of apoplectic tears, and a stream of coarse curse words flows into her ear. She allows him to take his friend back to Los Angeles on one condition: he asks no questions. She knows he will not turn her over to the CIA or French authorities; they both know living without Vaughn will be more torture than any conversation room.

She attends her love's funeral shrouded and veiled in black — she refuses to come as an alias, and she refuses to watch from afar. Weiss consoles her as best he can with glances, and even steals a small hug after the service, but mostly she keeps to herself, worried that an old friend from the office might recognize her — or that she might jump into the casket with him.

She curses the taste of rosebuds, the foolish hope for a future with him, one filled with love and happiness and puppies and unicorns and greenmeadowswithfluffywhitecloudsandprettycolouredflowers...

Now she must leave the cemetery, drive off in a car that is not hers, board yet another plane, and continue this deplorable charade. She does not want to, but she knows she must; she already tempted fate and lost. He is her warning. All the same, as she strides slowly down the narrow path between headstones, she peers imploringly at the sky and whispers her favourite Shakespearean line:

"'Fortune, good night. Smile once more; turn thy wheel.' For I so desperately need the luck."

_**END

* * *

**_— "_As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods: they kill us for their sport." — Gloucester (4.1.41-42)  
_— "_Fortune, good night. Smile once more; turn thy wheel." — Kent (2.2.188-189)  
_From _The Tragedy of King Lear_ by William Shakespeare

Well, now that we're all happy, how 'bout some feedback? Thanks for reading. Hope you enjoyed!

:D Becky, the Dream Writer 4 Life


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